


Flying Wingmen

by orphan_account



Category: Night at the Museum (Movies)
Genre: But also not, Larry is shy, M/M, Modern AU, Nicky is a very good wingman, everyone is ooc I'm sorry, look it's more fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-05 23:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4198926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Larry is vaguely disgruntled but takes the hint, and... somehow still winds up with his number? Because APPARENTLY his son is a very good wingman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flying Wingmen

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry.  
> I thought the title was clever last night, but now...  
> Anyway, here is a rambling little drabble in which everyone is a sleepy mess and Ahkmenrah's food is stolen.  
> Have fun.

"Fifteen D, fifteen D...." Ahkmenrah murmurs as he walks down the crowded airplane isle. After apologising to a stewardess he had bumped into and a rather irritated middle-aged soccer mom, he finally locates his seat and sinks down.

Digging his phone out of his backpack, he fiddles with it until the stewardess clicks on the safety video. Looking up, he then takes notice of the people next to him. There is a rather tired looking man, and a small boy, his son probably, staring at the screen in morbid rapture as an image of a plane "crashes". Ahkmenrah exchanges smiles with the man, noticing the weariness in his eyes before turning forward again.

As the screens turn black, the man clears his throat, getting Ahkmenrah's attention. A hand is extended towards him and Ahkmenrah takes it, a bit confused. "Hey," the man says, a bit sheepishly. "I'm Larry. And this is Nicky, my son. I apologize in advance for the transformers movies, by the way, he's in a phase..." the man- Larry- trails off. "So, yeah, hi."

"Hello." Ahkmenrah feels his mouth curl into a smile, the traitor. "My name is Ahkmenrah, but good luck pronouncing that. Call me Ahk."

He can see Nicky peeking out from beside his father, clutching an Optimus Prime figurine. Well, phase indeed. He greets Nicky, too, and the kid laughs and waves back. Then Nicky glances at his father, and what on earth could that look possibly mean?

Then the plane takes off and they're stuck together for seven hours, joy.

The snack cart comes around after a few minutes and Ahkmenrah takes a coffee, requesting an obscene amount of sugar packets. Larry gives him a dubious look and requests an orange juice for Nicky, who protests that, no dad, I want soda, you never let me have soda. Larry ignores him and casts another glare at Ahkmenrah's drink. "Gross, man."

Ahkmenrah shrugs. "Have you ever tried it?"

Larry pulls a face. "No. No, and if I did I'd probably end up, like, barfing rainbows. Gross."

Ahkmenrah shrugs again and downs the entire coffee in thirty seconds. He grins as his hands promptly begin to vibrate.

Forty minutes and a sugar crash later and he's practically asleep, unaware of Nicky's talking to his movie, or the fact that he's now sort of leaning on Larry's shoulder- okay he's actually totally aware of that. But the man actually makes for a surprisingly comfortable pillow, and he can feel the dark edges of sleep creeping in. He sighs lightly, allowing the sleep to seep into his mind.

Larry freezes up as Ahkmenrah leans on his shoulder, feeling his face become flushed. He glances at his face, relaxing some as he notices the slight flutter of Ahk's eyelashes and the steady rise and fall of his chest as he sighs. It's- actually kind of cute, how he's already fallen asleep. They're barely an hour into the flight for God's sake.

"Dad?"

He looks at Nicky as best he can without disturbing Ahk. "Hey, what's up?"

"Why don't you just move him?" Nicky asks.

Larry promptly blushes. Again.

He can't just tell his kid that, no, he doesn't want to move him because he looks completely adorable from this angle, or because of the way his hair is just barely brushing against his neck, or because he doesn't want to wake up the beautiful man next to- shit.

Apparently he takes too long to answer, because Nicky is poking his side and chanting under his breath. "Oooh, Dad's got a cruuuush, Dad's got a cruuuush!"

He swats Nicky's hand away. "No, I don't. Don't be stupid," he grumbles, but it's a lost cause. "Go back to your Optical Prime or whatever." This triggers the desired effect, causing Nicky to huff and turn away.

Larry grabs his book and, settling back, begins to read, smiling at the soft snores muffled in his shoulder.

Ahkmenrah wakes up and for a moment forgets where he is, why the ceiling is so close and why the walls are closing in and there are so many people close to him and he's panicking, old fears awakening and why was this good idea, God his lungs aren't working, he hates planes-

"Ahk!"

There are hands on his shoulders, grounding him and allowing him to focus. Larry is looking at him, concern etched into his features. Ahkmenrah dazedly grips Larry's wrists and blinks. He feels tears rolling down his face and avoids the man's eyes. "I'm- I'm fine. Thank you." He's not fine, he's still shaking, and his face is damp and his chest is still fluttering, but he can't say that.

Hands on his shoulders seem to linger, then are taken away. Ahkmenrah wants them back, but he's left with only an echo of warmth. He belatedly realizes he still has Larry's wrists in a death grip. Oops. Letting go, he frowns and stares at his lap, wiping at his cheek with the sleeve of his hoodie.

"Are you sure you're okay? Can I do something, or, uh..." Larry continues to stutter, offering to buy him a drink or food or maybe one of those neck pillows, and it's kind of cute, really.

"Larry, it's fine, I'm fine, calm down," Ahk laughs, although he's still anxious and jittery. He puts his hand on Larry's arm and gives him the best smile he can muster. He assumes it works, seeing as the rambling speech has stopped. But Larry is also staring at him, and that's pretty weird. Beside them, an odd beeping sound knocks Larry out of his trace as he tries to wrestle Nicky's phone away.

Ahk looks away and pulls out his sketchbook, opening to a blank page and idly doodling. The jitters fade away with the familiar habit. He internally screams as he realizes, five minutes later, that he's been drawing Larry.

"Hey, what's that?"

Ahkmenrah has developed the perfect glare for this exact damn reason. He hates that question. He hates all the questions. Still, he holds up his sketchbook, embarrassed and irritated.

"That's really good!" Larry is- there's no other way to phrase it, he's practically gazing at Ahkmenrah, and he might be gazing back, and he swears that one of them is leaning forward.

Wow no that's a bad idea, there's still five and a half hours left in the flight and he can not deal with that kind of awkwardness.

So Ahkmenrah turns and reaches for his pencil, which has fallen down on top of his backpack. Larry looks vaguely disgruntled but takes a hint. Out of the corner of his eye, because Ahk is now refusing to look at Larry, he sees Larry take out a book. Glad that there are now decent excuses to remain quiet, he plugs in his headphones and resumes drawing.

He's drawn back by the painful strain on his neck and a tap on his shoulder. It turns out to be the snack cart again. He buys one of those ridiculously expensive snack box things, and does his best to open it immediately. "These must be packaged in hell."

Larry laughs at him- probably the ridiculous pout he's making- and grabs the box. Within a few seconds he's got it open, even with the huge mess Ahkmenrah had made of it. Ahkmenrah snatches it back and might maybe make a face at Larry.

Nicky catches sight of the food and begins to whine. He's got the whole thing going, tugging on his sleeve, eyes wide, bottom lip out. Ahkmenrah laughs, but Larry seems uneffected, merely reaching into his bag and pulling out a huge box of cheez-it's. Damn.

Dismissing this, Ahk returns to his food, trying to decide between eating the chocolate first or the bag of almonds. Before he can decide though, a hand shoots out and snatches the almonds, the audacity! Ahk levels Larry with a glare. He glares back, and while looking him in the eyes, crunches on the almonds.

"War," Ahkmenrah hisses.

"Try it," Larry says.

Ahkmenrah snakes a hand towards the book abandoned on Larry's lap without breaking eye contact. Finding the bookmark, he slips it out and waves it between their faces. Larry pouts and snatches the bookmark, breaking eye contact to thumb through the book, trying to find his page again.

"Success," Ahkmenrah whispers, triumphant.

Giving up on his book, Larry grabs one of the magazines in the seat pockets and begins to flip through. Ahkmenrah has gone back to his music, and he's a little disappointed. Soon, however, the stress of the day- trying to manage everything and a kid is hard! -catches up to him, and the pages begin to blur together. He knows what's happening, that he's about to fall asleep on the man who's fallen asleep on him, but he's powerless to stop it. Also, he kind of doesn't want to.

Ahkmenrah is only a little irritated with Larry for falling asleep on him. It is rather inconvenient, seeing as he's keeping his arm from moving, and he kind of needs his arm for things. Like picking up his sketchbook from the floor. After some thought, he decides that moving Larry isn't worth it and that staring forlorn at his sketchbook is a much better option.

"Ahk- hey, Ahk!" Nicky hisses.

Nicky has a plan. He saw his father trying to flirt, and also that almost kiss. He knows, though, that his father will never get the guts to ask this guy for his number or anything, so he's going to do it for him.

"Ahk! Hey!"

This time Ahkmenrah notices, smiling and pulling down his headphones. "Hey Nicky, what's up?"

Nicky gathers his thoughts before continuing. "Okay so I'm pretty sure my dad wants your number or something, but he is way too awkward to actually ask so I'm doing it for him."

Ahkmenrah is laughing now. "You- you're playing his wingman! That-" Ahkmenrah pauses to breathe. "Do you want me to write it down or....?"

Nicky hands him his father's phone. Larry has been asleep this whole time. A pleasant surprise for him, then. When he gets the phone back, he glances at the new contact, and makes note of the kitty emoji. He smiles at Ahkmenrah, who smiles in return, then goes back to his music. 

 

Larry wakes up slowly. How long has he been asleep? Years? He sits up- his back is going to feel like hell tomorrow- and looks out of the window. Nicky has fallen asleep against the wall. He checks his phone, which is in a different pocket than he thought it was, which is a little weird. There's only half an hour left in the flight, thank God. But he might have a crush on the guy next to him, and he should probably get his number or something.

But of course he doesn't.

It's in the taxi home that Nicky mentions him again. "Y'know that guy? From the plane? Ahk?"

Larry sighs. "Yeah buddy, what about him?"

Nicky is quiet for a second. That most likely doesn't mean anything good for Larry.

"What's a wingman?"

Larry nearly chokes on air. "What? Why- what does that have to do with the guy?"

"He called me your wingman."

"Right, yeah, okay why?"

"I don't know, I was getting his number for after you... fell asleep..." Larry isn't listening, instead he's tapping at his phone, and there's the contact. Holy shit, his son is better at getting numbers than he is.

He's not sure how to feel about that.

"Dad? Are you mad at me?"

"What? No way buddy, it's- good job, Nicky. But I'm pretty sure I could have gotten it myself."

Nicky scoffs. "As if."

Larry knows he wouldn't have gotten the number. He's not going to let this go, though, so he spends the whole ride home arguing with his son about it. After they get home, he can't help but feel a little excited at the new message on his phone.

"Your son is a good wingman. ;)"


End file.
